Haven't done one of these in a while (as if anyone noticed).
Start with a couple of broader points. First, we all know the adage that things are rarely as good or as bad as they seem. Take some solace in that (not much, but a little). Ole Miss is over the moon today, as is Bama, but their fanbase was probably even lower than we are now after a some of their atrocious losses.
Secondly, F this schedule of ours. I'll get into our myriad of issues in a moment, but setting aside the straight up difficulty of our schedule in terms of who we play, the amount of travel, both in terms of number of trips and distance, has got to be wearing on us. 3 true home games through 9, and the number of away from home games in succession is just brutal. I sure would've loved to like Oregon and get Maryland at home yesterday, for example. Thankfully, we're in the friendly confines from here on out.
Starting with the offense, I am not a Bobo hater. I think, though, that he is not our OC because Kirby thinks he's the best OC available nationwide. He was hired because Kirby knows and trusts him, and because he spent time under Monken, and I think there was a sense he could keep the overall system going. I don't think Bobo is bad by any means, but definitely time to give a long hard look around to see if we can upgrade (heard Buster Faulkner's name bandied about from some here).
Having said that, it's damn near impossible to scheme around the woeful O-Line play, not to mention drops and piss poor execution. Credit to Ole Miss, as their pass rush has given pretty much everybody fits this year, but it was clear we could not block them, particularly on the edges. Which brings us to the next completely unoriginal question. Searels?
When it comes to position coaches, if the unit is not performing well, I try to take the approach of, "What could the coach be doing that is so incredibly different than every other (O-Line) coach out there?" In other words, I can't imagine Searels is doing or not doing pretty much the same thing that every other experienced O-Line coach does 99% of the time. But, the buck stops with him, and we cannot hope to play winning offensive football given what we saw yesterday in both the run and pass blocking game, as well as the poor run blocking we've seen pretty much all year.
I thought Beck definitely made some better decisions yesterday. He hardly played like a superstar, but again, his receivers almost never helped him out, and the Ole Miss defensive front made it nearly impossible for him to get in a consistent rhythm.
I was screaming at the TV during our long 4th quarter drive that ended with 0 points. I wasn't expecting us to go full on hurry-up, but there was absolutely no urgency, given we were down 2 scores. We operated as if we were up two scores. Very odd.
Defensively, the pass rush absolutely disappeared after Ole Miss' first series. Maybe Brent and Dayne or others can illustrate if they adjusted, or if we just got handled after that first series. I know we started playing bend don't break, though, as we started dropping 7. Frustratingly, they still managed to have guys wide ass open. Way too many uncontested throws/completions. Schumann was on everyone's 'hot board' to be the next HC from the Kirby tree. I'm not saying that's over with, but he certainly hasn't improved his stock this year. Very up and down. That said, the defense more less kept us in the game, even though we gave up too many yards and first downs.
RB room is completely decimated. Etienne obviously gave us what he could. Frazier clearly has ball security issues, and Cash Jones is a great supplemental piece, but not an every down back.
Arian Smith wore the wrong shoes yesterday in the rain.
We definitely had our share of lucky breaks, particularly with unnecessary penalties by Ole Miss to extend a couple of our drives. But, they got that tipped pass that went to an unintended target on their 2nd series, and another that was just out of reach of Jalon Walker for an interception at mid field. When they tipped some of our passes, it was completely bad news. Just the way it goes sometimes. We had some potential big hitters on offense if the line performed better and they don't deflect those passes.
I certainly could go on and on, and nothing here that hasn't been said by one or more people over the last 12 hours.
I'd be lying if I said I was optimistic about our chances to make a run in the playoffs even if we do get there. But, again, outside of Oregon, there are really no teams out there that are feeling good now who were feeling really terrible earlier this year, if that makes sense.
I'm just not sure what we're going to be able to do at this point, particularly on offense, to get things going.
Next Saturday is our de facto wildcard game. Win, and we're most likely in (GT may not be a 'given', but certainly like our chances). Lose, and the season is over, and Kirby will get a head start on seeing what moves he needs to make in the off season.
